Tuesday, October 25, 2005

About that comics exhibit . . .

Here's the link to the Masters of American Comics exhibit coming next month to the Hammer Museum in LA:

http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/94/

There are some fans out there concerned about this kind of exhibit, in that it creates a kind of canon of comics creators viewed as the "greats". These critics are worried that this might be an attempt to take the square pegs of comics art and force it into the round hole of universally accepted artforms.

Not to mention the fact that a lot of great comics professionals aren't included this time around.

As for Our Man in LA (who can't wait to go), I'd argue that this is how it starts. Sure, a canon is exclusive. Sure, it excludes a lot that's great out there. But it's a start. Let the critics out there claim they know who's good and who's important and who's not. At least then we start to look at an art form that just 15 years ago was being reviled as "low culture".

There are dozens of other writers and artists who will make it into the canon eventually, I promise. God knows I have my favorites who aren't represented. I believe that some of them (Bill Watterson, Jeff Smith, and so on) will make it.

Consider this. There was a time when Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Thurber, Faulkner, and Nabokov weren't part of the literary canon. They came.

Just because there is a canon doesn't mean that all other works are meaningless. They're not. Give it time, folks. Just be glad this art form is finally recognized.